


No Need to Tie the Knot (We're Tied Together Already)

by imagined_melody



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Conversations, Declarations Of Love, Future Fic, M/M, discussion of marriage, no actual proposals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagined_melody/pseuds/imagined_melody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian and Mickey discuss marriage. Spoiler alert: no one decides to get married, but they're still ridiculously in love. ;) Written for the Shameless "A Fic a Day in May" challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Need to Tie the Knot (We're Tied Together Already)

**Author's Note:**

> This is all I have time to contribute to the Fic a Day in May challenge tonight; in fact, this is more than I planned on doing! Unedited, because I am very tired. If I wasn't so busy, I wouldn't have to do all my writing between the hours of 9pm and midnight, but that's the lot I've drawn, apparently.

"You get the feeling we're married yet?" Ian asked Mickey as they sat outside on a cold but clear winter’s night. They were on the ground in the middle of the baseball field, Ian’s side pressed up against the solid lines of Mickey’s body, close as they could get without overlapping. Mickey was tacitly allowing Ian to hold his gloved hand, wedged awkwardly in the space between them.

It had been five years to the day since Mickey came out. Neither of them would admit that they remembered the date. And yet, they always seemed to find a way to celebrate.

Mickey looked up at him from an angle, a puzzled expression on his face. "We ain’t married, Firecrotch."

Ian smiled. "That's not what I asked." He turned his face downward to kiss Mickey's shoulder. "Do you feel like we are? You know, ghetto married, like Kev says?"

Mickey gave it some thought. "Dunno," he said after a minute. "I got no idea what it feels like to be married, man. Not like things with Svetlana made any kinda goddamn sense.” Ian made a small noise of agreement, and silence fell between them again. He didn’t expect Mickey to say more, so what came next was a surprise. “What we got here's pretty good to me. If this's what being married is like, I think I could live with it."

Ian's smile grew a little more. "That is such a 'you' answer," he chuckled.

"Makes sense, since I'm the one fuckin’ giving it." Mickey shifted to nudge himself impossibly closer to Ian. "Why? You feeling particularly married tonight?"

Ian shrugged against him. "Maybe," he said. "Just thinking about how we got this whole life we made together from bits and pieces. Guess I was wondering what joins it all up."

"Some kinda goddamn emotional superglue," Mickey offered, and Ian laughed aloud. 

"Got that right," he agreed.

They watched their breath puff out before them, white trails of cold air against the darkness of their surroundings. It was Mickey who resumed the conversation. "You think a ring and some marriage vows would hold it together better than what we're doin' now?" He sounded so unsure, so wary of not doing right by Ian even now. Ian felt a pang of remorse every time he heard that hesitance in Mickey’s voice. He knew he was the one who put it there, by leaving all those years ago. Even now, it was clear Mickey worried he wasn’t doing enough to keep Ian. That doubt was the hardest thing of all to overcome.

Ian gave the question at hand a moment of serious consideration. "No," he decided after a while. "I honestly think getting married wouldn’t mean that much to me. And I don’t think it would for you either."

“Nah,” Mickey said, leaning back a little to rest on his elbows. “Once was enough. Hell, Gallagher, once was too many times.”

"Hmm," Ian said in agreement. His fingers had begun absently tracing over Mickey's knee, scratching at it in a way that made Mickey nearly purr behind him. "Guess we were never really cut out to be normal."

Mickey laughed a little at the truth of that statement. "For what it's worth," he said in a low, contented rumble, "I would take the whole fucked-up life we’ve had together over some normal shit any day." Ian craned his neck to stare at him. Mickey looked back at him, confused by the intensity of his gaze. "What?"

“All of it? Really?” Ian didn’t know what to do with this information. “All the shit I did to you, before I got on my meds? All the shit _Terry_ did to you? You wouldn’t change that if you could?”

Mickey rolled his eyes, the trademark evasiveness coming back into his bearing. But his words were still honest. “I mean, I’m not happy it happened, man. Wish it hadn’t. But it got us here, didn’t it?”

Ian sat motionless for a moment, still trying to process this nearly-unprecedented show of Mickey’s commitment. Finally, he moved up to straddle Mickey's lap and wound arms around his neck. "You are such a romantic, Mick. Even if your version of 'I love you' includes the words 'fucked-up' and 'shit.'"

They both laughed at that- and then they were just laughing, making small happy sounds until they collapsed in a contented pile on the ground. Ian grabbed at Mickey's hips to tilt them up a little so that they were pressed close, not as a means of starting anything more, just an instinctual way of drawing him near. He leaned in to suck a small bruise into Mickey's neck, and Mickey exhaled a pleased growl at the bite of it. He raked fingers over the back of Ian's neck and the join of his shoulders, which earned him his own happy shiver in return. 

“Fuck romance,” he muttered under his breath. Ian just laughed again and kissed him senseless.


End file.
